Lit Disney Wars: Episode 7 and the EU (Disney Purchasing Lucasfilm, intends to release Ep 7 in 2015)

that's making a lot of assumptions though
Like assuming they will use those characters at the appropriate age/time.
Or assuming they will use those EU characters at all, and not make up completely new ones

I feel like an idiot for not knowing she only had one arm. Shows how much I appreciated the Hapan sections then.

Making them the same age Darth Vader "was in the OT" actually raises more questions than you might first think:

Which Darth Vader?

Because in the OT thirty years ago, the idea was for him to have been much older than the PT retconned his backstory. So, actually, if you went with the principle originally intended in the OT itself, it'd mean more like thirty or forty years later.

So "the age DV was" actually isn't as simple an idea as it sounds, as there's two entirely different ideas that might have been going through Lucas's mind when he wrote his ST outlines: a Luke Skywalker who was Sebastian Shaw's age, or a Luke Skywalker who was only a 40 year old Hayden Christensen.

Regardless of the EU, the question depends on when Lucas would have expected Han and Leia to have kids. Is he the kind of guy who'd have expected Leia to get pregnant on Endor during the victory party? Because that's what you'd need to have happen for them to only have the same gap as the PT-to-OT.

I'm going to start trying to make peace with the sequel trilogy possibly negating parts of the post-ROTJ EU as I fully expect that to happen. Lucas rarely minded contradicting it for his own stories, I'm not sure I expect Disney to be much different.

Looking forward to Abrams directing, though. He made no secret of his SW fandom when he was interviewing about Trek and Super 8 certainly indicated a passion for the 70s and 80s sci-fi nostalgia. I can certainly see him honoring the original trilogy and making it fit those films style and feel, maybe even better than the prequels did.

In a way, it's both a sequel and a prequel. It's a prequel in that it takes place when the original crew were all young before the time period of the series. It's an alternate universe, though, created when Old Spock and the giant Romulan ship go back in time. So, though old Spock is from the previous Trek universe and that's all the past for him, this is a new Trek universe with a different path for it.

Yeah, it's still a sequel in the sense that Biff would never have become a millionaire had the original timeline not happened and Marty never met the Doc and left the original future's Almanac in 1955.

Abram's Trek is basically Millionaire Biff timeline.

Millionaire Biff timeline if the original 1985 wasn't also negated. The idea seems to be that both timelines remain intact.

I don't even feel like a true Star Wars fan anymore, I feel like a fan of a completely different Star Wars, because the Clone Wars is being redone when I was happy where I was, and the direction the post-NJO has been taken is so depressing, that I have no interest in the time period. Most of the novels from last year I am interested in reading, but the way the Clone Wars multimedia project has been treated makes me not even want to invest myself in the EU if something like TCW is just going to come along and completely change it.

What's this about Clone Wars being redone? I saw the movie but don't follow the series.

It's enough to make a guy regret buying all those books in the first place.

Oh wait, you didn't.

That's honestly why I'm okay with the idea of the new movies doing their own thing. The post-NJO time period is what it is, but I don't think it deserves to be the definite answer of what happens to the characters from the original Star Wars movies. A year ago I would have been completely opposed to the idea of splitting canon, but I am becoming more open to the idea.

I want the ST to ignore the post-NJO too, but my gut feeling is the last minute Mortis curveball in Apocalypse is an intentional setup for Mortis to show up in the ST, which would probably kill the ST for me.

I would actually object more to them chopping the EU in half around the NJO than just doing their own thing entirely. If we're getting stuck with two universes anyway, better to just leave all existing EU in one, and bring stuff over into the ST on a case-by-case basis. The relationship between the EU and the movies could be like Infinities was with the EU - canon if not contradicted, noncanon otherwise.

Plus then there'd at least be room to do "Ultimate" versions of some of the negated material down the line - even if the Solo kids went out the window altogether, some version of TTT, BFC, NJO, etc could still have happened in the ST universe, but they'd remain untouched in the EU universe either way.

Your gut has the timeline of the Disney deal drastically wrong.

I'd be fine with that as well. I know many are wanting Mara, Thrawn, and other things to carry over to the ST, but I'd be fine with the ST being one account of what happens after ROTJ, with the Thrawn trilogy/NJO being another. As I've said a few times, if there's one area of Star Wars that deserves multiple creative interpretations, it's what happens following the OT.

Thing is, at that point I'd really rather ditch the idea that there's only one canon timeline, everything else "didn't happen". Even if the ST overrides pretty much everything, there's still plenty of set up for later events earlier in the timeline, most notably Outbound Flight and other early Zahn short stories. Seems disrespectful to just cross a big red line through everything that came before.

Of course, arguing whether TTT and beyond should be "alternate canon" or "non canon" is really just arguing semantics. If the ST takes the bulldozer route, I think the best thing to do would be to write an "ending" to this iteration of the post-ROTJ EU, then start a new line coinciding with whatever the ST decides to do.

The Splinter of the Minds Eye foreword (in reprints) did say the movies were the "middle" of a series.

Yeah, I'd rather they just axe it all than pick some arbitrary before-and-after date.

Conversely, I'm not as fussed if they just copy TCW and it's just a gradual erosion, simply because none of the EU I have enjoyed the most hasn't been eroded over the years anyway (see TOTJ) so I'm more understanding of that.

But, like I mentioned elsewhere the other day, I very much foresee any reboot not being fuelled by the same EU we have enjoyed: it'd instead be built off video games, cartoon shows and spin-off feature films. Like all movie tie-ins, it would be a new audiovisual EU for the mass market, who'd rather play games than read books. So when that happened (when, not if, as I have zero faith in a rebooted EU being led by literature as books would not be given precedence over video games and spin-off shows) I'd rather the old "literary EU" just remained its own thing and just be archived as it is.

Which is why my interest is very much based on them not rebooting, as I doubt I'll stay interested if they just reboot and the EU becomes filled with TFU-style mass market multimedia works.

While I didn't like what TCW ultimately did with it and thought FOTJ's "explanation" positively stupid, I actually don't mind Mortis in principle when approached in a more abstract way. If it was something mysterious encountered for the first time in a film (sadly too late for that now of course), then I think it actually could have been rather cool in a fantasy/sci-fi genre blending kind of way.

I mean, the ST needs to do something other than ghosts and laser swords to make it fresh and exciting again, and Mortis could have been just the thing to make it different to every other science fiction series with lightsaber derivatives and telekinesis these days. But Lucas blew it by using it too soon in TCW, so now the ST needs to think up something different.

Although I suppose they could always have the new protagonist visit the Whills or something for a similar "spirit realm" kind of thing.

I don't quite get the "Lucas is out and away with everything from him" feeling from people. It's more like wishful thinking IMO.
For starters, after this deal, he is the second largest stakeholder of Disney (in terms of stakes, not size ). Then you have him endorsing K.Kennedy, endorsing M.Arndt, endorsing JJ Abrams, pitching the ideas for the script to be written. In all, it seems almost the same king of involvement he has with TCW. Heck, if you think drastically, the Disney deal was more about outsourcing SW than stepping out.

On a separate topic, this conversation has got me thinking about possible antagonists again...

As much as I've previously said I fully expect either another Sith or Mother Talzin or something, I've actually just considered something quite different: anti mutant attitudes in X-Men.

Lucas and Star Wars are both strongly influenced by religion, right? With the Sith having basically been the Devil worshippers to the Jedi's righteous monks? Well, here's something we haven't seen that much from Lucas himself: atheists. Not Vong, but just people who have had enough of those lousy Jedi (their Republic failed in PT) and those twisted Sith (their Empire failed too).

Sure, we've had stuff like Daala or the Mandos in the EU, but nowhere in the films themselves has there been anything but the odd individual character who doesn't believe in hokey religions or thinks the Jedi and their sorcerous ways wiped out. But what if someone took that further? Lucas made the Force genetic when he came out with midichlorians, so is he the kind of author who'd also think there could be a genetic "solution" like the sort of thing we've seen in X-Men stories?

It'd be a cliche, but then Star Wars was a cliche, and it would avoid the obvious Sith cliche, whilst dealing with a rather contemporary philosophical issue that I imagine would be something Lucas might worry about, i.e. the decline of religious faith. So would he be likely to go with the idea of Luke having had more problems than just the Empire to deal with, but with the very fact that the galaxy -- as seen in people as close to him as Han! -- had completely lost faith in the Force, and no longer want Jedi anymore than they want the Dark Lord of the Sith invading their homes?

Just a random thought that suddenly sprung into my mind as something I could picture Lucas himself feeling concerned about and potentially having thought he could turn into a metaphor to use as a story. The enemy then wouldn't be the dark side of the Force, but the absence of the Force and the threat its followers could disappear entirely, whether light or dark.

As someone who has been an Atheist since age eleven, I like this idea. There's no denying the religious influence in Star Wars; it's not a bad idea at all to play with that. I'm not sure I want something quite as literal as ysalamiri to show up, but I think it's absolutely natural for there to be tension between those who can use the Force and those who can't.

We saw Luke become a Jedi in Return of the Jedi. He proved to the viewers that the Jedi needed to return, but perhaps in the next movies he has to prove it to the galaxy.

That's why I emphasized the "IF"